`Ring'-leader of emo pack debuts second album
By JOHN HUSTON
Scene Music Critic
There's a word that should be creeping up on mass-consciousness soon: emo.
Emo, for those who don't know, is indie-rock with emotional lyrics. The Promise Ring is at the head of the emo pack, propelled by the pop genius of its third album, Very Emergency.
Along with fellow genre-mates Get Up Kids, Sunny Day Real Estate and Jets to Brazil, The Promise Ring creates hauntingly endearing music. What sets it apart from the others, though, is the group's ability to write the perfect hook.
Each song is like a piece of candy, like a Werther's Original — sugary enough to satisfy the taste buds, but after it's gone one is left craving more. Hours could be spent thinking up ways to find another Werther's Original to satiate a watering mouth.
The same goes for the new Promise Ring album — it's nearly impossible to get the chorus of the second track, "Emergency, Emergency," out of your head. It's that good.
But wouldn't someone who ate 10 Werther's Originals in a row get sick to his stomach? Nope. It's very hard to get sick of The Promise Ring.
Luckily, the band serves up a variety of candy-coated emo songs for the listener to suck on. Some are happy and bouncy like "Skips a Beat." Some are melancholy like "Things Just Getting Good" and "All of my Everythings." The others are everywhere in between.
Besides tasting great, The Promise Ring is good for you too! Davey VonBohlen, singer/guitarist, includes some thought-provoking, lyrical gems. In "Living Around," VonBohlen reveals, "I'm losing my voice talking to you about talking to you." In "Happiness is all the Rage," the album opener, he sings, "doing laundry finally, the first sign of first light, still nothing to wear between us."
Almost every song contains poetic plays on words that insist there is more lyrical substance than the average group. In "Jersey Shore," VonBohlen sings that he is "bored walking on the boardwalk."
Their 1997 album Nothing Feels Good was good, but this album is a masterpiece. It puts them up there on the "alternative rock" pedestal alongside icons such as R.E.M., Nirvana and the Pixies.
The Promise Ring's music is generally smarter, more honest and more emotional than most of the "alternative" that gets attention today. Very Emergency is an incredible album and a superb introduction to "emo." The whole emo genre is a goldmine of incredible music that is just waiting to be thrown in front of the public's ears, and The Promise Ring is emerging as the king.
All Scene Stories for Tuesday, September 28, 1999
